


Perception In The Drift

by Bouzingo



Series: The Rachel Becket Series [2]
Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: F/F, Trans Female Character, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-10
Updated: 2014-07-10
Packaged: 2018-02-08 07:19:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1931721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bouzingo/pseuds/Bouzingo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rachel Becket is enticed to get back into a Jaeger in one last-ditch attempt to save the world. She meets Mako Mori.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perception In The Drift

At the Shatterdome in Hong Kong, not a single person misgenders Rachel Beckett. Rachel is pleasantly surprised; while people hadn’t been openly malevolent in Alaska (and God knows Rachel can always look out for herself in a fight), it was difficult to present as female when you were working on a wall and covered in bulky workclothes and grime just like everyone else.

She is covered in the same shit when she reaches Hong Kong, but Stacker Pentecost hasn’t slipped up once yet. And then they meet Mako Mori outside the Shatterdome, rain battering on their umbrellas. Mako turns to Pentecost, cocks her head and murmurs in Japanese:

“I imagined her different.”

“Better, or worse?” Rachel asks in Japanese with a cocky smile, trying to hide her glee at the correct pronoun.

Mako apologizes, though she really doesn’t have to, and they make their way to the elevator. Rachel hasn’t even entered the Shatterdome, and she feels better already.

The possibility of fighting in a Jaeger one more time is intoxicating, even though she still has doubts about having another pilot in her head. The pain of losing Yancy, sharp and physical as any broken bone, still wakes her up at night and makes her whole body hurt.

“You’re a big deal,” Newt Geiszler says, hands going everywhere when he talks. “I think every trans kid ever had a poster of you on their wall. Not a little embarrassed to say that I did.”

“That’s, um,” Rachel says. Mako and Stacker Pentecost look around in the elevator and it looks like Doctor Gottlieb is facepalming.

“TMI, yeah I know,” Newt says, and starts losing steam. “Look, no matter what you think you’re doing here, you’re making a difference. Socially. You know, if we can actually close the Breach and retain a society. It was good to meet you. Now if you’ll _excuse_ me I have to go do what I love! Hermann, say goodbye!”

“I’m sorry about him,” Gottlieb says. “There’s nothing worse than a Jaeger groupie. Except a Kaiju groupie. And he is both.”

“ _Dude_ ,” Newt says from down the hall. Rachel grins awkwardly at Pentecost and Mako. She’s not good at talking to them, but she kind of likes fans.

Pentecost introduces her to the other Jaeger teams that are left after the program went decommish, after all those unsuccessful missions, though Rachel doesn’t need to be introduced again to Herc Hansen, who grasps her hand with a wrinkle-eyed smile and starts shooting the breeze about Manila.

Herc is great, always has been; it’s his son that gives Rachel pause. Chuck Hansen looks at him with a condescending smirk and leaves without so much as a word.

“Don’t mind Chuck,” Herc says. “Standoffish and a damn fool, but I’ve tried to raise him right. Won’t say a word out of line to you.”

“That’s good to know,” Rachel says, though doubts still niggle at the back of her throat.

It is so good to see G_ Danger again. Her presence thrums in Rachel’s gut, like she’s drifted with the Jaeger itself, and she resists the urge to reach out for Mako’s hand because she knows Mako must feel it too.

Rachel thinks she might be falling in love with Mako, and knows that they have a link that will only be enhanced by the Drift. Mako is straightforward, intelligent, and beautiful. She’s not afraid to tell Rachel what she thinks of her going back into the field.

She doesn’t hold back at all, not even while ogling Rachel from across the hall. Rachel shuts the door out of self-consciousness more than anything. The scars on her side are fairly disfiguring and her breast forms are a bit more obvious with this ratty bra.

As she changes, Rachel realizes that she does not perceive Mako’s glances as hostile, or gawkish. Rather, she sees them as preempting the far more intimate looks of the Drift. One should come before the other. When two women such as themselves are so inherently compatible, it is almost crude to begin on the outside and go inwards like usual. They need to meet in the Drift first.

Rachel loved the Matrix when she was a kid, because the idea of gaining enough self-awareness of the world’s artifice for one to create her own ideal body was such a beautiful one. In the Drift, she found she could affect her appearance somewhat, though certainly not enough to perceive herself. If she focused too much on this aspect of the Drift, she started chasing the RABIT.

Yancy could see her though. Even if he’d always supported her before, it was during the Drift that he truly understood. And, like an optical illusion that wavers between two distinct images, he’d carried some of her self-perception over to the real world.

He’d confided that to Rachel only a few days before Alaska, and she’d been so angry at him after for not telling her sooner so she could know who she was supposed to be.  
Rachel’s not that angry anymore, but she still doesn’t know who she’s going to be.


End file.
